The Hermit (9 page)

The
next several months passed in much the same way.  Ryan hiked and read during
the day.  Occasionally, he did some remote consultations with doctors who
sought his particular expertise.  Really though, he waited for Daphne’s call.  When
it was just getting dark in his area of the world, she would call him.  It was
much later for her and he knew she was having trouble sleeping. 

It was
a couple of months after her hysterectomy before she was cleared for physical
activity but when she was, she joined a women-only gym that offered martial
arts classes.  Every night, she’d tell him about her progress and he encouraged
her to keep going. 

“I
love
hitting the heavy bag, Ryan.  I picture what I should have done, what I could
have done.  I was a wimp; I didn’t know any of this stuff.  That will never
happen again.  I kick and hit that thing until I can’t lift my arms, until I
can barely stand up.  It’s the only way I can sleep.”

“That’s
why I hike so hard.  Stress relief that also keeps me in shape.  You keep doing
what you’re doing.  And there was nothing you could have done back then,
Daphne.  Three violent men ambushed you.  Surviving…everything you did…that was
enough.  You did enough.  I’m just grateful every day that you survived.”

“I
won’t ever be a victim again, Ryan.”

“I
know you won’t.  You were always strong.  If you weren’t, you wouldn’t have
made it.  Now you’re focusing on making your physical abilities match your
mental abilities.  You’re making yourself a serious badass.”  That made her
laugh, pulling her out of a particularly down day.  Hearing Daphne laugh was
the best reward, it lit him up inside, better than any alcohol buzz.

Her
frustration hit a high note after a long week of organized physical and psycho-therapy. 
She was exhausted mentally and physically.  “I have fucking therapy three days
a week now.  Ryan, I’m going to lose complete control of my senses and strangle
the woman with one of her stupid scarves.  She always wears a scarf to match
her outfit.  She must have a hundred of them because I’ve never seen the same
one twice.”  She gave a laughing snort and it made Ryan grin. 

“If
she says, ‘and how does that make you
feel
, Dah-phne’ one more time,
dear God, I’m going to lose it.  I want to tell her, ‘look, stop pretending
like we’re on the same wavelength because you have no fucking
clue
’. 
She doesn’t know, Ryan.”

“No. 
She doesn’t know, honey.  No one can really know how it was for you.  That must
make you feel pretty isolated sometimes.” 

“I
love that you get that.  That you hear me.”

“I
hear you, Daphne.”

“They
put me in a group session every Friday with other victims of sexual violence. 
I could stab out my eardrums, I swear to you.  I get that everyone handles
things differently, but there are women in there who
cry
all the
fucking
time.  This woman was date raped and that is fucking awful.  I can’t imagine being
brutalized by someone you know.  But she
cries
non-stop and I guess I
don’t understand.  I don’t get it.  Get angry.  Beat the fuck out of something
and remember you can always fight.  I won’t cry about it again, Ryan.  I’m not
sad about it.  I’m furious.”

Two
weeks later, she started running.  She was working herself into physical
exhaustion daily, trying to force her mind to quiet so she could sleep. 
Sometimes it worked.  Too often, it didn’t.  Daphne’s calls were coming several
times a day at erratic times and Ryan realized she was calling him when she
woke from nightmares. 

He
charted her progress for almost a month, amazed at how well she was doing.  “I
ran six miles today, Ryan.  Before all this happened, I’d have been lucky to
run a mile without stopping.  I’m getting stronger.”

“I
could not be prouder of what you’re doing, Daphne.  What does Janice think?”

There
was a long pause.  “I tried to get her to run with me but she said she would
pass out.  I don’t think she knows how to talk to me anymore.  We’d been the
same once…now we couldn’t be more different.  If someone asks me a question, I
answer it.  Sometimes, I’m too blunt but I don’t realize I am until she tells
me.  In my old life, I lived to please everyone around me.  My happiness didn’t
really matter.  Not to me and not to anyone else.  I won’t live like that now.”

“You
can’t go backward.  No one expects you to.  She loves you, Daphne.  I doubt
that she doesn’t know how to talk to you.  I think she’s censoring herself and
I bet there is a lot of guilt in her heart.”

“Why
should she feel guilty?  She didn’t do anything.  She looked for me the whole
time.”

“But
she was never able to find you, Daphne.  Two years and she never found a
trace.  Then one day you manage to escape and walk out of hell.  She has to be
furious at herself.”

“I…I
didn’t think of it like that, Ryan.”  She was quiet for a long time, then said,
“It changes how I look at the conversations we’ve had over the last several
months.  I’m so wrapped up in pretending to settle back into my old life that I
forget what it was like for her while I was gone.  She would have seen the
reports when they found Steven.”

“Yes. 
She would have suspected what you were subjected to, sweetheart.  Would have
wondered if they would find your body in a ravine…abused like Steven’s had
been.  To know she couldn’t find you and that your abuse and pain went on for
two years while she searched…she’s hurting inside.”

“I
wish I could hug you, Ryan.”  His heart gave two hard thumps.  “She’s more a
sister than my friend.  I understand now.”  They talked a few more minutes and
disconnected.  Ryan rubbed his chest as he stared into the fire.  He wanted
nothing more than to have Daphne hug him.

The
next day, Daphne called to tell him he’d been right about Janice.  “She cried
so
hard
, Ryan.  It was like she was trying to empty her insides out
through her tears.  She begged me for forgiveness.  It was horrible but I’m so
glad she was able to purge it from her system and I was able to tell her there
was nothing…
nothing
to forgive.”  He heard her breathing, slow and
easy.  “It helped drain some of my anger.  A little bit of it.”

He
asked her about her daily run.  “Janice bought me an MP3.  I used it for the
first time today.  I loaded it up with a bunch of rap and hard rock.  I ran
really well to that, better than running with only my thoughts in the
background.  I never used to listen to anything but country, a little bit of
pop.  Now that crap turns my stomach.”  Ryan could hear her breathing
accelerate through the phone and knew she was fighting back emotion.

“Happy
endings are a
crock
.  There are no happy endings, just changes of
scene.  The fucking play goes on forever.”  She was quiet as she worked to pull
herself together, as she always did.  “Sometimes, I wonder why I didn’t just
have the courage to off myself while I was in that cage.  Why I didn’t do it
when I had the chance the day I escaped.  I had the knife.  I knew I would
never be the same.  I’d always be this damaged
thing
…”  Her voice was
too quiet, with a darkness he recognized often in himself. 

Ryan
sat up in his chair, the phone gripped to his ear with white knuckles,
“Daphne.  Listen to me, I know you’re tired.  I know you’re hurting and don’t
know where you fit.  But I’m telling you right now, you didn’t survive hell to
quit now.  You are not a
thing
…you are a beautiful, strong woman who is
going to beat this.  You cannot quit now.  Please don’t give up, Daphne. 
Please.”

He
waited through her silence, a vice around his heart.  “Ryan, would you
understand if I ended my life?  Be honest, as only you
ever
are…would
you hate me?”

He let
the strength, the pain, of her words sink in as he thought carefully, his hand
over his eyes.  He
wanted
to lie to her.  He knew he couldn’t, “Oh,
Daphne.  I…I would understand.  I know the agony you’ve been through, that the
nightmares keep you up nights.  I know the rage you feel inside.  I don’t want
you to give up, not ever, but I could never hate you, sweetheart.” 

Clearing
his throat, he swallowed around the lump.  “If you took your life, Daphne, I’m
not sure how I would handle it.  I think it would break something inside me to
know you weren’t out there in the world.”

“I
just…I’m useless.  I have no
purpose
.  I hate people, I hate this town, and
I hate myself.  When I get startled or scared, it sickens me.  I hate being so
fucking weak.  I used to know who I was and now I don’t even feel human.” 

She
was panting for breath, struggling – as she often did – to keep her composure. 
“I try to talk to the idiot therapist about it but she gives me cute little
sayings and pep talks.  I’d love to be hard core honest with her…
lady, I
want to kill myself or someone else so how does that make you feel
?  But
I’d end up in a padded room for sure and I can never be confined again.  I
really would lose my mind.  There are people everywhere, Ryan.  When they brush
up against me on the sidewalk I could crawl right out of my skin.  Listening to
them, watching them, having to breathe the same air…I don’t know how much more
I can take.”

“Daphne,
what can I do to help you?  I’ll do anything.”  Ryan was pacing the living
room, frantic with worry and too far away from the only person he’d been able
to connect to in decades.    

“You’re
doing it right now, Ryan.  You’re listening to what I can’t tell anyone else. 
You aren’t judging me and you’re the only person since all this started who
will tell me the truth.  You never lie to me, even when I can tell you really want
to.  Everyone else is afraid the truth will send me spiraling into a full
psychotic break…when it’s the
bullshit
that’s going to accomplish
that.”  She took a deep breath, “Will you tell me your story, Ryan?”

He
didn’t pretend to misunderstand.  He’d known it would come to this, that the
time to tell her about his own past couldn’t be avoided forever.  “Daphne, I…”

“Ryan,
nothing
you tell me will change the way I see you as a person, as a man. 
Nothing
.  And I need to know about you, you know so much about me.  More
than either of us wishes you did, I think.” 

“No,
Daphne.  I could never know too much about you.  No matter your scars, inside
and out, you fascinate me.  You make me feel.  That is exciting and
frightening.”  Pulling on a jacket, he stepped outside with a pack of
cigarettes he kept for emergencies. 

She
heard him light the match and said, “You used to smoke.  You gave it up but you
still need one when you’re really stressed out, don’t you?  I’m sorry I’m
pushing, Ryan.”

“No,
Daphne…you aren’t pushing.  Of all people, you have a right to know.”  He
cleared his throat and took a long drag of the cigarette.  He’d always loved
smoking, no matter how bad he knew it was for him.  “I joined the military
right out of high school.  My family was dirt poor and I wanted to be able to
get a good education.  Back then, that meant enlisting in the service.”

He
paused, closing his eyes for a moment to gather strength.  “In the Marines, the
higher ups realized I had skill with a rifle and sent me to sniper school.  All
those years of hunting deer really paid off.  Making me even more valuable was
that I was able to execute targets without all that pesky guilt afterward.  If
I read the file on a target and knew,
knew
they were scum, I could take
them out and go have pancakes.”

Sucking
in a lungful of air, he heard Daphne say, “After I killed Winston, my only
thought was finding a shower and a steak.  I couldn’t have eaten it but that’s what
I wanted.  I’ve never felt one moment of guilt for stabbing him to death.  I
wish I could have been with you to watch the other two die.”

“I’m
glad you weren’t.  You’ve seen enough violence in your life, baby.”  He took a
drag of his cigarette, “I was part of a special team for four years, and I was
very
good at my job.  The military put me through medical school and found another
area I excelled in.  When I returned to the field full time, I functioned as
the team medic and executioner.  A strange combination, I guess.”